


3AM

by enefasparable



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Shameless Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 13:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2812988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enefasparable/pseuds/enefasparable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Iris</em>. He said it like the word was water in the middle of a desert. Like the word was the sun shining on a barren planet. He said it like the air around that word tasted differently, balancing it delicately on the tip of his tongue and making her think, <em>think</em> that maybe…</p>
            </blockquote>





	3AM

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set after Barry's declaration of love in 1x09; it's angsty and smutty, and I'm really hoping yall enjoy it! :)

When Iris stepped out of her car, rain coated the earth around her in thick sheets. The wind howled and hissed, whipping at the flimsy sweatshirt and light pants she’d hurriedly slipped into; dread settled into the back of her throat, twisting and throbbing in time with her too-fast heartbeat and trembling hands. All but paralyzed with something she was too afraid to name, she breathed a silent mantra into the February chill.

_You can do this._

She clung to the last shred of her resolve, believing that if she could just … _just_ … 

Just what? See him? _Tell him_?  

Barry’s sleepy apartment building loomed quietly ahead, lit by only a few who struggled to fall asleep. She’d spotted his window easily enough, but found no light bathing its closed blinds. Too late to turn back now, though. 

When she reached the locked lobby doors, she paused to eye the old door buzzer near the entrance. It’d stopped working ages ago; she remembered joking with Barry about how _useless_ it was. Didn’t everyone have smartphones? Or other ways of getting in contact with loved ones inside?

The dread in her throat unfurled, languid and numbing; she’d have given _anything_ to make that stupid call box work now. Calling suddenly felt too personal. Too close. She remembered all the hurried calls exchanged between classes, where they both ranted about professors and college workloads; the long, rambling conversations where they talked about nothing and everything all at once, weaving dreams and hopes and _wants_ into the fabric of their relationship; or, those calls that were just _different_ , she realized now — the ones where he could only breathe her name with the kind of laden warmth that came from loving someone. _Iris_. He said it like the air around that word tasted differently, balancing it delicately on the tip of his tongue and making her think, _think_ that maybe…

She palmed her phone momentarily, uncertain, before searching through it’s recent calls.

_Barry Allen … Last Called: 12/24/14_

Approximately two months ago. She swallowed hard. Why in the _hell_ did she come here?

She turned on her heel, defiant. 

_Fuck you, Barry Allen_.

Fuck him for contributing to sleepless nights, for confirming what she’d long since hidden beneath the layers of her soul, touched only in the quietest of moments reverie. Fuck him for making her _believe_ in it.

She marched halfway across the empty parking lot before letting go of a strained sob. 

A beat passed. Then she drew in a breath, deep and heavy with the scent of rain. 

_You can do this._ No more running. 

With her phone in hand, she dialed him. There was silence, then a ring that seemed to last eons. Then, Barry’s quiet voice, laced with disbelief: 

“Iris?”

* * *

 

When Barry saw her, he was surprised and afraid and just a little too excited. She eyed him cautiously from across the lobby, her arms folded, her hair still damp from the rain outside. He fell in love with her all over again, right then and there; it lined the distance separating them, and it took all of his resolve not to hope, wish, or want.

“Hey,” he mustered awkwardly. “Is everything … okay?”

She smirked humorlessly. Well, what the hell else was he supposed to say? Up until now, he’d only seen Iris rarely around the station; she came by less and less, likely as a result of their previous conversation. And now, she was _here._ Standing there, right in front of him. No Joe. No Eddie. No one but her.

“Look, I know it’s been weird,” Barry said, breaking the silence. “I feel it too. But I’m really trying to just … respect you, and respect your wishes.”

“Trying?”

Her voice was soft, quiet; she seemed genuinely confused.

“Yeah,” he returned gently. “That’s why I haven’t been around much lately. And, I mean, I just thought it’d be easier. Because I get it, Iris. I do. I know I had horrible timing, and you’re living with Eddie now, and —”

“In seventh grade,” she interrupted, “I thought about what it would feel like to kiss you.” Iris’ heart hammered uncomfortably, but it was now or never. “I mean, _really_ kiss you.”

Barry stilled, rooted into place; and Iris, _Iris_ was separating the distance between them slowly with every word. 

“For so long, you’d been this constant in my life. Shorter than me. Funny and adorable, but still just my Barry. But you went away that summer, remember? To camp. And when you came back, you were _different_. Or maybe I was. And there was this … _thing_ , this quiet between us when I first saw you.”

“It was like learning someone all over again,” she laughed quietly. “You took me into your arms, and you kissed my cheek. I mean, you kissed me there but I felt it … _everywhere_.” 

She stood directly in front of him then, the sound of their quiet breaths the only thing separating them. 

“And I spent that summer running from those feelings, hiding them. Because, before long, it wasn’t just kissing that I wanted. It was _lingering_. It was being with you, even though I didn’t really know what that would mean for either of us. And then, you know, I just felt so silly. So odd for thinking all those things. So I made myself forget about it, and instead I had the worst first kiss _ever_ with Michael McIntyre.”

“Iris,” Barry whispered. He remained silent for a long while, lost in old memories. “I didn't … I never realized …”

Her slender fingers traced the curve of his lips, and Barry sighed into her touch. The rational part of his mind screamed at him: _what are you doing!?_ and _what about Eddie?!_ and a million other pleas meant to make him withdraw. But he lingered, laced his fingers between hers, and fought the urge to kiss the places where their digits met.

“You weren’t the only one with secrets,” she said. “I ran from it for years. I—I’m still running from it…”

She was afraid. Even now, Barry felt it trembling through her. In one swift movement, he gently pressed his forehead against hers and brought his other hand to cup her warm cheek.

“Then stop running, Iris.”

_Iris._ He said it like the word was water in the middle of a desert. Like the word was the sun shining on a barren planet. She shuddered against him, her fingers threading themselves through the hair at the nape of his neck, and Barry trailed his other hand down to cup her waist. Like magnets, they drew closer until her body was pressed against his; she arched upward, positioned her lips just underneath his, barely touching. Her voice came out in a strangled gasp:

“Okay.”

Hesitantly, Barry brushed his lips against hers; he savored the soft moan that this elicited before capturing her mouth in a deep, lingering kiss. Iris crushed herself against him, wanting, _needing_ to feel the warmth of his skin against her own; Barry responded by gently coaxing her mouth open with his tongue, rhythmically exploring hers with a fervor that left her breathless. 

Then they were there, in his lobby at 3AM, breathless and shuddering in one another’s arms. She searched him with her eyes, pleaded without words. No more running.

“Upstairs?” Barry asked, uncertain whether he was dreaming or if _any_ of this was real.

Maybe it was the heady feeling of _finally_ admitting how she felt, or perhaps understanding just how fucking _fantastic_ it felt to kiss Barry Allen, but Iris responded by grabbing his hand; she guided it down the crevice of her belly, past the elastic of her underwear, and dipped two fingers into the growing wetness beneath her. The sensation of his fingers sliding over her clitoris elicited a soft cry; Barry let go of a low _fuck_ upon encountering her warmth.

“What do you think?” Iris whispered coyly.

It took all of Barry’s strength not to whisk her away upstairs using his speed (and not to feel guilty about the _other_ secret he kept from her). When they reached his door, Barry struggled to unlock it properly, his other hand tangled around Iris’ waist, his lips peppering soft kisses across her neck and collarbone. When they finally stumbled through it, Iris tugged at his shirt, breaking their kiss long enough to see it over his head and her sweats discarded.

“Oh god, Barry.”

Iris bit her lip hard; his hands had pushed up her sweatshirt now, and his tongue and teeth were sucking parts of her exposed breasts; slowly, he worked his tongue across her warm skin until it found purchase around one erect nipple. Iris’ high keen spurred him onward, as his other hand worked the other between deft fingers. Instinctively, Iris wrapped one leg around his waist, forcing him to grip her thigh; their deep kisses were punctuated by coalescing moans as he pressed himself against her, his dick sticky with precum and hard enough to make him ache with need.

Before Barry could make his way back downward, desperately wanting to bury his fingers within her again, she pushed him away. 

“Did I hurt you?” He asked, puzzled, afraid. But she crossed the space between them to push him back on his own couch.

Iris smiled, her lips finding his once again. “No. Just wanted to find the perfect position,” she whispered, gently worrying his bottom lip between her teeth. 

Barry grinned into her kiss as she straddled his lap, but his groans became urgent as she ground herself against his erection. He couldn’t help but meet her quickening thrusts, grinding up and sending waves of pleasure through every crevice of her body. The couch began to squeak, laced with the sounds of their increased moaning, and Barry buried his face into Iris’ neck, sucking and biting and groaning and calling out with the kind of needy desire that Iris could only echo with fervent cries into his shoulder. When she reached down between them to cup her fingers around his member, stroking the wet head quickly between his upward thrusts, Barry lost it — 

“Oh God, oh f _uck_ , Iris!”

His orgasm rocked through him, waves and waves of spams and pleasure that started low in his belly until it spilled over. As he spasmed, Iris brought her coated fingers to her mouth; the way she _licked_ them, while he watched, still panting and palming her thighs, still slowly grinding out the resulting aftershocks, almost pushed him over the edge again. 

“You don’t get to just … fuck,” he whispered, a smile playing at the edge of his lips. 

“Just what?” Iris kissed his neck, licked a trail to his ear, and laughed playfully. “Just make you feel _that_ good, Mr. Allen?”

He shook his head. “Make me love you like this.”

Iris stopped her ministrations, pulling herself back to look him in the eye.

“I didn’t even think it was humanly possible to love someone this much,” he countered. “And … I don’t want to lose you again.”

There it was. The confession. The truth that was underneath all the moments between them. Still, there was no tremble, no hint of the fear that existed earlier. Just love, an unyielding, unbreakable kind of love that was new and old all at once. Iris kissed him gently.

“Eddie didn’t want to lose me, either. But …” She shrugged, not out of nonchalance or meanness, but out of knowing that she’d made the right choice when she ended their relationship weeks ago. “I realized that, in a way, he already had. My heart’s always been yours, Barry.”

The joy that spread through them both rode on the kiss he gave her. It crept into the way he gently flipped them, so that she lay underneath him on the couch. It was part of the way he worked his lips down her torso, pausing to tease her still-hard nipples between his teeth. It was in the way that his fingers slipped across her wetness, in the way that they trailed in circles to brush against the soft folds of her clitoris, in the way that she circled her hips against his fingers, his lips inches from hers to swallow every moan she released. 

He left her mouth to place soft kisses against her outer labia; his fingers pried her apart, and he licked a trail between the curvature of her; Iris shook against him, fighting the urge to grind herself against his face, and Barry slipped one finger inside of her. She gasped and took to kneading her own breasts, steadily watching his face between her legs. His eyes darted upward; he watched her touch herself, watched her watching _him_ , and took care to suck her clit directly whenever she arched to meet him. 

“Oh, fuck, Barry, you’re going to make me —”

He didn’t want her to finish that sentence. Not coherently, anyway.

So he pushed her hips into his face, burying his tongue within her, lapping and sucking and kissing and rubbing her past her peak. A fire spread through her, starting in her belly, and engulfed the rest of her. She shook and cried and gripped the couch, and somewhere in that burning haze came Barry’s warm hand found hers; he held it firmly, let her tremors rock through her, and lapped up the slow moisture that pooled beneath them.

Iris was all numb limbs and shaky breaths; somewhere in the distant fog of her mind, she felt him carry her into his bed.

“I love you,” he whispered, placing her under the covers. 

She grinned, latching onto the words before falling asleep.

“I love you too.”

They were mumbled, but he held them closely. Savored them. Because the reality set in, the harsh truth of it all. Would she still love him when he revealed the other secret he kept from her?

Only one way to find out. 

_No more running_.


End file.
